Archive for May, 2010

Valley Delusions…

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Recently, during those torrential, late-winter rainstorms, the police visited our mini-Ponderosa.

To clarify: we moved from busy NoHo to the wilds of uber-quiet suburbia. We were used to sirens and overhead helicopter traffic and muffler-less motorcycles speeding down our street at 3:00a.m. We were used to a lack of parking and doors-banging neighbors who think like this: it’s a GREAT idea to bring a rooster home to live in my kitchen and to leave all my kitchen windows open so that when my feathered friend crows at 5:00a.m., an angry mob bangs on my door, which I don’t answer because I wear earplugs and have a white noise machine because I brought a rooster home to live in my kitchen and everyone knows roosters are noisy buggers, ha, ha!

WTF!

We relocated from NoHo excitement to silent, leafy streets offering plenty of parking and a sweet house flanked by kindly types who offered up their lawn mowers when ours broke down because we ran it over a partially submerged-in-earth tree stump, and why wouldn’t we run over a partially-submerged-in-earth tree stump with our lawn mower since we’ve never had a lawn (much less a mower) of our own before and are bemused by mowers and gardening power tools and white fly infestations and ants as welcoming committees and lunatic mocking birds dive-bombing our cats and the frequent raking of leaves and yanking up god-awful growths called weeds and finally understanding yes, yes, gardening gloves are absolutely necessary when pruning roses (a procedure we YouTubed because we’ve never pruned a rose and are still shocked that rose pruning has proper procedure, like nose jobs).

To clarify: the previous inhabitants of our home spray-painted an ultra red Lightning McQueen (cartoon car) on the wall in our back yard. It’s gone now, but during those torrential rains, those mini-monsoons of earlier this year, the mural was still there. Then, one dark afternoon during a break in the weather, as my son cheered for Tinky Winky catching Tubby Toast, I sipped dubious coffee and gazed through the large windows facing the back yard—and I saw something besides old Lightning McQueen.

Truly, the “Cars” empire is one to amaze. They are everywhere.

There, under the retreating blooms of our potato-vine-tree-thing, I saw, in white paint, this:

E N R I Q U E

My first thoughts: OH MY GOD WE’VE BEEN TAGGED BY A GANG A GANG WAS IN OUR BACKYARD AND THEIR NAME IS ENRIQUE AND WE’RE TAGGED AND WE DON’T HAVE A DOG AND I AM ALONE DURING THE DAY IN SUBURBAN WILDS WITH A SMALL CHILD AND TWO SLACKER CATS INCAPABLE OF CATCHING SPIDERS OR FIGHTING OFF DIVE BOMBING MOCKING BIRDS AND MAYBE IT’S SAFER TO LIVE IN POLICE AND HELICOPTER PATROLLED NOHO RIGHT UNDER DANGER’S NOSE THAN OUT HERE IN UBER-HUSHED SUBURBS WHERE HELICOPTERS FLY FAR FAR NOISELESSLY OVERHEAD AND ALL I HEAR ARE BEES RAIDING ORANGE BLOSSOMS AND THE OCCASIONAL DOG BARK AND MY SON’S PLEAS FOR HOT DOGS OH MY GOD WE HAVE TO MOVE.

I called my husband and in an urgent tone told him: ENRIQUE. He immediately called the police. As I waited for them to arrive, I stared gloomily at Lightning McQueen, wondering what he saw last night when the ENRIQUE gang arrived to mercilessly tag our lives—and suddenly I was positive ENRIQUE had taqgged Lightning McQueen, too, adding new colors to the mural, enhancing it, gang-artistes. My eyes scanned the walls of our mini-Ponderosa. I gasped: spray painted on the far left wall, just above the spiky agave, was a white cross I had never seen before in my life.

Um—doh…

By the time the police arrived I was also convinced there was tagging on the curb across the street that said: UFO. Great. In addition to the cross-obsessed ENRIQUE gang there was also the notorious UFO gang leaving their mark in our Hood and we were going to have to move because we simply could not raise a child in gang-infested suburbs of the San Fernando Valley, no matter the cute houses and pretty, well-maintained yards. Any second the gun shots were going to start up. I was mentally packing my bags as I let the two policemen in and pointed out the tagging. Their politeness and poker faces fueled my terror. I watched them through the windows as they inspected ENRIQUE and the dreaded cross. It was starting to rain again.

The cops: No, ma’am, it’s not a gang. You’d have to live up in Northridge for gang action. Probably just some kid on a dare. There aren’t any footprints. Could be the rain washed them away, although the ground is kind of protected by that tree thing…Well, I wouldn’t worry, ma’am. Sure, get a dog and keep up your security lighting and always remember that nowhere is safe, but you’re in a nice neighborhood, ma’am. Good looking boy! We’ll be on our way now.

Wait! I begged, unable to process what they were telling me. What about the UFO gang?

The cops exchanged glances of pity and impatience.

The cops: Well, ma’am, If you go right up to the curb, you’ll see the letters aren’t actually UFO, but DWP. Probably someone’s water pipe is right around there and needs fixing.

They loped off to their police car, leather jackets up over their heads for protection from the cloud burst.

After I put T down for his nap, I hauled my computer onto my lap and brought up the before-moving-in and post-excessive-renovation pictures of our Ponderosa.

Oh. My. Sweet. Basil. And. Cow. Crap.

In one particular photo of the yard, one directed at the grave of Mr. Peabody, there, behind the grave, partially obscured by the potato-vine-tree-thing, this: ENRIQUE. Further scouring of the pictures revealed the white cross. There were plenty of photos of Lightning McQueen and as I examined them carefully it was obvious that no tagging enhancement had taken place. No tagger had been in our yard, period. No wonder there weren’t any footprints! I was both relieved and: DOH! DOH! DOH!

Forget out-of-sight-out-of-mind. How about: in-sight-for-nearly-a-year-and-COMPLETELY-NOT-ON-YOUR-RADAR.

Sniff, sniff…

I called my husband and listened to him laugh and laugh. Babe, he gasped between laughter gushy as the rainstorm. Babe, I thought we’d been tagged, too—it wasn’t just you!

Listen, I responded. Listen to me, husband: I made policemen get all wet and muddy for no reason.

Ha, ha! I can’t believe you—I mean we—ha, ha, so funny! I–I can’t breathe. Ha, ha, ha!

My cheeks burned.

I still want a dog, I hissed.

But babe, S laughed. Try and see the humor! Aren’t you glad we haven’t been tagged? It’s all good, babe. And funny as—-

He was laughing so intensely it was necessary for him to hang up.

Until I painted the sucker over!

A few weeks later, when the Ponderosa had dried out somewhat and the sun totally confused blossom-bearing plants with a surprise pre-Spring heatwave, I painted over Lightning McQueen and ENRIQUE. Only the cross remains—until I can get to the paint store and purchase more gloriously white, white, beautifully blanking, utterly erasing gallons.

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Blog Break…

Friday, May 28th, 2010

Ahhhhh…bliss on the beach with my toddler…

Where my mind is.

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On Non-Reacting…

Sunday, May 23rd, 2010

Today, as I made a deposit at the BofA drivethru ATM, a car pulled in behind me and the driver said, immediately, loudly, COME ON.

Hm, I thought, depositing my checks. How rude!

Masterpiece.

The man continued to express himself.

OH MY GOD. YOU’RE TOO SLOW.

Oh. Hell.

Words cannot express the beauty…

This is the thing about me—I too often see red when provoked by a stranger’s rudeness. Red makes me act hastily vs. breathe and remember crucial situation-bits, such as: he could have a gun, he could get out of his car and strangle me, I could endanger my son’s life by responding to his rudeness. Lately I’ve been so good about not responding to rudeness that I can’t even recall any rude encounters since—well, since the last bout. If anyone has been rude, I’ve been oblivious to it. Life has been one joyous set of outings! I’m pretty sure, anyway.

OH MY GOD. HURRY UP.

Mama’s crude helicopter…

When seeing red, I forget that whatever a rude stranger’s problem is, it isn’t mine, therefore, I: don’t need to react.

COME ON, LADY. JESUS.

When seeing red, my usual eye color of blue-tinged-with-a-stricken-gray is completely obscured. Red conceals the very whites of my eyes. I look like Medusa on a Red Bull binge (like she needs an energy drink). I look totally, mirror-image-y, Norma Desmond (spitting fire).

YOU’RE TAKING TOO LONG. OH MY GOD.

Such magnificence of abstraction!

As I was saying, lately I’ve been working on letting things go, on forgiveness and compassion. I feel better when I forgive and move on—I feel freer—lighter—I like myself more—and besides, I’m busy! I don’t have room in my heart for a bunch of old hurt feelings, guilt or resentment. I have a family! How lucky, how marvelous, how—

HURRY UP, LADY. YOU’RE TAKING TOO LONG. CAN’T YOU HEAR ME?

SHUT THE F*** UP YOU F***ING F***ED UP F***ING DING-DONG CLEARLY F***ED IN THE HEAD F***ING CRETIN AND A**HOLE! YOU F***ING F***-ALL SUCK!

I like T’s drawings better than mine…

I didn’t say this out loud. I promise. But I did pull ever-so-slowly away from the ATM, sending the man into a heightened verbal rage. My hands shook on the wheel. My breath came fast. My heart felt like a million fingers were drumming on it. When I finally drove out of the bank’s lot, saying cheerful things to T in his carseat, what I felt was a depth-plumbing dismay.

I had let some stranger and his rudeness affect me. As my grandmother used to say, Oh for crying in the beer, PB!

Ah, simplicity…

On the other hand, even as I antagonized that man, I was conscious of what I was doing, conscious that I wasn’t proud of myself, and I heard, though did not heed, a special voice clearly advising me to move on, move on. Voice from my heart. Yeah. I heard it.

When I pulled into the parking lot of Trader Joe’s, T babbling happily about clown fish, my breathing was steadier, my brain was back in “calm”. During the brief drive from BofA to the store, I’d vowed to try harder to non-react to rudeness. Because this vow came so swiftly on the heels of the Rudeness Event, vs. a week, or months later, I decided that I was a step closer to personal progress, to being able to let it go sooner than ever before in my life. Perhaps the next time I am confronted with a stranger’s rudeness I will be able to fully non-react without even a hint of red clouding my eyes. Hm…

Sometimes, I am sooooooooo nice to myself.

Love the real thing, too…

I hope.

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Mama’s Day, 2010

Friday, May 14th, 2010

Stopping to smell the May roses gone wild…

This year, Mother’s Day started the friday before, around 6:30p.m. From my post at the kitchen sink, scrubbing dried ketchup from T’s food tray, I watched my dearly beloved pull up and extract a huge white cage from the passenger side of the car. I slid back the kitchen window so hard it banged. WHAT DID YOU DO! I shouted quite rudely.

Cat-safe cage hanging!

I’ve had some experiences with birds. More than one wild house finch has required my rescuing services, the last one just a week ago, when I pulled a youngster from Al’s mouth and T and I rushed it to the Wildlife Waystation in Calabasas. One wing was tweaked, I think tweaked before Al’s mouth tasted it, which is why he was able to catch the finch at all, because when you look like THIS, you don’t move very bird-catcher-cat nimbly. Mostly you lie around licking your large pink belly, when you’re an Al.

WHAT DID YOU DO!

Back when I was a single woman in Los Feliz, I opened my security gate one morning and there he was, Mr. Peabody, my new love, collapsed on the ground at my feet. I rushed him inside, revived him with drops of tap water on his beak and popped him in a cage I had from saving a wild finch who’s leg had been damaged by a pop-up sprinkler and who I’d nursed back to health. In went Mr. Peabody for 3 or 4 years. He died right before I moved in with my (then fiancee) husband, destroying me. I kept him in a small box in our freezer for two years (yes, creepy shades of “A Rose For Emily”), until we moved here, to the Ponderosa, and I was able to give Mr. P a proper burial in our back yard.

WHAT DID YOU DO!

For 2 years my husband couldn’t get over having a dead bird in his freezer—still can’t. He brings it up to friends and colleagues and me, when I mention my missing-of Mr. Peabody…

WHAT DID YOU—oh whatever. Givehimtome, givehimtome, givehimtome now.

Regardless of his whole frozen bird complex, S obviously took to heart how much I miss Mr. Peabody and so he got me Julian for Mother’s Day: a very young, green parakeet I plan on taming and giving free-fly time around here. We’ve hung his cage up extremely high (meaning away from cats) and in a central location, so he can see us coming and going, hear us, hear the TV, the birds outside, can be in on all the wild action in these parts.

THANK YOU!

Our son calls him “baby bird”, said with a mixture of shock and awe every time he stops and looks up at the cage, which is often. “Baby bird!”

THANK THANK THANK YOU!

So for once I didn’t save a bird, but was given a bird and it’s such a different feeling. Part of me feels, well, rude: Oh god–another animal to feed, water and worry about, NO NO NO!!! But that panic passes when I watch Julian explore his food bowl by plopping down in it, or tussle with a rock-hard piece of bagel, or when he emits those cheerful chirps and delights my son. I’m glad he’s here. I look forward to coaxing him onto my finger one of these days, when he decides I’m worth trusting.

Julian!

Welcome to the Ponderosa, baby bird. Just—live a long time, okay? And prosper.

Seriously, though: Thank you.

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Blog Break…

Friday, May 14th, 2010

As it says…

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Tylenol Recall…

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

As you probably know by now. Nevertheless, here is the link:
TYLENOL RECALL 2010

Since we gave our son doses of one of the recalled Children’s Tylenol last week, I had a mommy freak-out today when reading about the recall, especially the bit about possible “particles” in the liquid. Let’s interview me for a second:

PB–how do you feel about having just given your son a s***load of potentially toxic, harmful, particle-filled, very bad stuff posing as medicine to your one and only beloved toddler?

Hm. Let me see. I feel—–*@#*%!!!!!!! I feel as if I should never, ever have purchased Tylenol, but done my research and found some wonder-organic fever and pain reliever. I feel as if my investigative diligence is seriously lacking when it comes to what’s best for my toddler. Since the recall was announced, I have silently screamed, snapped at my husband, privately wailed and Googled holistic and homeopathic topics incessantly, downloaded lists having to do with pesticides in fruits and vegetables, growled into my pillow, FB’d my concern and eaten obscenely thick wedges of brie. Any questions???

Yes, just this: does your son show signs of illness, rashes, odd behavior, excessive fatigue, listlessness or anything, really, that might alarm?

What are you getting at? You sound like my husband!!!

Surely your son is fine. Sit back, have a glass of wine, call the doctor in the morning and step away from Google, PB. Just step away.

Listen–you can’t possibly be a parent, because if you WERE you wouldn’t offer such ^$%*@ advice! Why don’t you go stick your questions in a firecracker headed right up your a@#!!!

Night, night, PB.

Grrrrrrrrrrr….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…….